Photo: United States Library of Congress • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Copyright expired)
West Virginia was sunk by six torpedoes and two bombs during the attack.
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USS West Virginia (BB-48) was a dreadnought battleship of the Colorado class and was built between her keel laying in 1920 and her commissioning into the Navy in 1923. The ship spent the 1920s and 1930s conducting routine training exercises which provided invaluable experience for the coming war in the Pacific.
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West Virginia was moored in Battleship Row on the morning of 7th December 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Badly damaged by torpedoes, the ship sank in the shallow water but was later refloated and extensively rebuilt over the course of 1943 and into mid 1944. She returned to service in time for the Philippines Campaign, where she led the American line of battle at the Battle of Surigao Strait on the night of 24th/25th October. There, she was one of the few American battleships to use her radar to acquire a target in the darkness, allowing her to engage a Japanese squadron in what was the final action between battleships in naval history.
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After Surigao Strait, the ship remained in the Philippines to support troops fighting during the Battle of Leyte in 1944 and then supported the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in early 1945. The ship also took part in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa later that year, providing extensive fire support to the ground forces invading those islands. During the latter operation, she was hit by a kamikaze that did little damage.
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Following the surrender of Japan, West Virginia took part in the initial occupation and thereafter participated in Operation Magic Carpet, carrying soldiers and sailors from Hawaii to the mainland United States before being deactivated in 1946. She was decommissioned in 1947 and assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet, where she remained until 1959 when she was sold to ship breakers and dismantled.
Source: Wikipedia
Photo: U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command • Believed to be in the Public Domain
USS West Virginia off the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington, USA
on the 2nd July 1944, after her reconstruction.